August 17, 2002

Scotty and I began our ascent of Mt. Sill from the top of the V-Notch Couloir, left-hand finish, after beginning at Thunderbolt, traversing over Starlight, North Palisade, and Polemonium Peak. We had intended to continue on to Middle Palisade after Sill, but it was nearly dark already, so now we were just looking for a way down. We had decided to traverse the south side of Sill to the East Couloir, but as we started over, we could not resist the left turn up to the summit. We summited at 9:20 pm, signed in, took some photos, and hustled out for the East Couloir. We were wearing headlamps, so visibility wasn't a problem. As the sun went down, the wind really picked up. We descended off the ridge and down toward the couloir. We found what we thought was the East Couloir, and peered over the edge, but our headlamp beams did not reach the bottom. Thinking this might be the wrong couloir, we traversed further southeast to the next couloir, and it looked equally as bad. We returned to the 1st couloir, started down, and found the down climbing to be difficult in the dark. We climbed past a chockstone, and found a semi-flat alcove underneath the chockstone, sheltered from the wind. We huddled there to discuss our options, and felt it would be wise to hang out for a few hours until daylight, 7 hours away. We were pretty warm for an hour or so, but the rock and wind sucked the heat out of us. I was wearing shorts, a wicking T-Shirt, a polypro top, and a windbreaker. Scotty was a little better off, he had shorts with zip-on legs, a beanie, a lightweight jacket, and gloves. As the night wore on we were colder and colder, and we huddled together in the back of our alcove for warmth. Finally the sun came up, and since we were east facing, we warmed up quickly and began our climb out of the couloir. As we down climbed, it became apparent that we had made the correct decision, as this couloir is 4th class, and was fairly difficult even in daylight. At the bottom was a good sized bergschrund, and we rapped into this and traversed inside the 'schrund until we found a ramp up onto the top of the glacier. We made our way southeast across the glacial bowl toward the South Fork of Big Pine Creek. Eventually we made our way to the creek, crossed over and found the South Fork Trail, and followed this back to Glacier Lodge. We didn't bag Middle Pal until the following weekend. For Scotty's take on this peak, click here.